Bet UK's Resident Golf Expert's Portugal Masters Betting Tips

The Course

The Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course in Portugal (effectively known as Vilamoura) hosts the Portugal Masters once again this year. The course will be very well known to keen golf followers and is renowned for wide fairways, and a lack of punishing rough. Punters should be looking to side with some of the big hitters off the tee in this low scoring, fun to watch, birdie filled extravaganza. Here are my Portugal Masters Golf Betting Tips.

The Favourites

Heading the betting market is Thorbjorn Olesen. The Dane has had an excellent season and has squeezed his way into Europe’s Ryder Cup team. Olesen will be walking around with a spring in his step looking forward to Paris and being a big draw in this field. But, his record around Vilamoura is fairly average and we can readily pass on him this week. Olesen may be favourite for the event but the majority of eyes will be on his Ryder Cup team mate Sergio Garcia. Garcia arrives here in poor form having missed three of his last five cuts and is only playing the event in a desperate attempt to organize his game in time for the Paris showpiece. Whilst he is of course a class above the vast majority of his rivals this week, Garcia’s focus will be on tuning up his game rather than his final finishing position, and is easily left out of the staking plan.

Thomas Detry

For our first bets on the event we’ll chance two Belgium players. Thomas Detry can be safely considered a certain future European tour winner and his chance may well come this week. Detry finished a solid 20th on his debut at Vilamoura last year and looked in excellent shape last week when 3rd in the KLM Open in Holland. On a course where to triumph you will need to go low it is worth noting that Detry’s Challenge tour win came when he posted an astonishing 29 under par, winning The Bridgestone Challenge by a remarkable 12 shots. Bet UK make Detry a 28/1* chance and he seems highly likely to have a good week.

Nicolas Colsaerts

At an understandably bigger price given his lacklustre season Nicolas Colsaerts is worth a small bet. The Belgium bomber has a predictably decent record around this wide open track including a second place finish in 2014. Colsaerts is always at his best on courses which heavily favour length off the tee and in the hope that Vilamoura can bring out the best of him, he is priced at 80/1* on Bet UK’s online sportsbook.

Ryan Fox

Few golfers hit it further with the driver than New Zealander Ryan Fox and the prodigiously gifted Kiwi is our next pick at Bet UK’s online sportsbook is priced at 32/1*. Fox remains a maiden on the European Tour but has four professional wins under his belt, two on the Challenge Tour and two in Australia. Fox averages over 318 yards off the tee and ranks sixth in driving distance this season. He may have missed the cut here last year, but it would appear highly likely that Vilamoura will suit his talents.

Haydn Porteous

Our fourth selection also missed the cut at Vilamoura last year, but again there seems no logical reason why Haydn Porteous will not take to the Portuguese course eventually. Porteous arrives here in decent form with a string of solid finishes to his name and his victory in the 2017 Czech Masters was on a track where length is also favoured. His other win was the 2016 Joburg Open, where his winning score was 18 under par. Given this week will also be a birdie laden shootout, he looks very fairly priced at 68/1* on Bet UK’s sports betting feature. At 80/1* and completing the staking plan is young Aussie Lucas Herbert, this will be Herbert’s first look at Vilamoura but it’s a simple course to get to grips with, there are no hidden tricks and the powerful Herbert should take to conditions well. Consistently towards the top of the weekly driving distance stats, Herbert arrives here on the back of a respectable 28th place last week and it’s reasonable to expect an even better performance this week.

Best of the Rest

Lucas Bjerregaard is much respected as defending champion and of the front 7 or 8 in the betting, he was the toughest to pass up. Bet UK make him 16/1* joint second favourite and that seems a reasonable assessment, we certainly couldn’t put anyone off the strapping Dane. Chris Wood is also a 16/1* chance but he’ll have some scars from last week’s near miss, whilst the 18/1* Eddie Pepperell makes limited appeal given his lack of length from the tee. Tom Lewis is a former champion round this track and has been playing well on the Challenge Tour of late and he is worthy of consideration at Bet UK’s 44/1*. Charl Schwartzel certainly has a class edge on most of the field and he will understandably have his supporters, the South African primarily plies his trade in much stronger events across the pond and tends to do very well when dropped in class. Bet UK make Schwartzel a 20/1* chance. At the same price is Shane Lowry, and he is also a former champion here, Lowry’s short game is an absolute joy to watch and it would be no surprise to see him bounce back into top form this week.
Of those at three figure prices, in and out Marc Warren caught the eye at 125/1*, Warren blows hot and cold seemingly at random but on his day is better than his price suggests. Also noted is Christiaan Bezuidenhout a 175/1* with Bet UK and the South African is more than capable of out running those odds.
The Portugal Masters is always an enjoyable watch with players being able to open their shoulders off the vast majority of tees so this is an event to look forward to.

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